Exit interview: The voice of the St. Paul Police Department retires
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After a decade as the spokesman for St. Paul Police and 30 years with the department, Sgt. Mike Ernster has retired.
His last day on the force was Friday, and he joined Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer for an exit interview.
You've been a patrol officer, a K-9 officer. So why did you decide interacting with the media seemed like a good career move for you?
Ernster: In the middle of my K-9 career, I was, we were lucky to participate in a program called K-9 Cops. It was on the Animal Planet Network, and it exposed me to being on television a little bit and having a camera in my face. And I'll be honest, I kind of got used to it, and I thought that the PIO spot would be something similar, and I figured I’d give it a try.
I liked that show on the Animal Planet. It was a good show.
Ernster: I broke my arm on that show... I got in a foot chase with a shooting suspect, and we collided, and I went down and I tried to catch myself and I broke my left wrist. And it's on video for me to watch for eternity.
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Did you have a sense as to what you were getting yourself?
Ernster: Everything that I experienced as PIO was completely different than anything I experienced on the Animal Planet program. So it was a steep learning curve for me, and I'll be honest, for the first year… I didn't like the job as much as I thought I would.
You know this, there are all kinds of talk about narrative, who's pushing what kind of narrative? And I'm thinking about the Minneapolis Police Department who spun their own narrative about the death of George Floyd. When you've been in a situation, have you thought about that concept of narrative?
Ernster: 100 percent yes. So in those situations, or any situation where information is being asked and it's being asked of right now, where they want it immediately, we don't want to put out inaccurate information. We definitely don't want to cause any more harm than the situation has already had. So we want to be fast, but we want to be accurate. And that narrative, it's not necessarily a narrative… it's about what occurred, factual information. So we want to slow down, make sure we have it accurate. We want to get it out as fast as possible. But accuracy is paramount.
Tell me about your relationships with reporters. Have they changed much in the 10 years you’ve been PIO?
Ernster: Yes, reporters come and go. It depends on what medium you're speaking of. There's a high turnover rate in television. Beat reporters, local reporters, whether it be MPR, you know, radio, local radio or print reporters, they tend to stay the same, so the relationship's pretty good. There's always that open level of communication back and forth. People can call and I'll speak to people, and it has been pretty good over the years. Tough questions, for sure, but that's understandable, and I think that's required of reporters as they're speaking to government entities like the police department.
What's the weight of being the bearer of bad news?
Ernster: It's a heavy weight, and it's a heavy weight that in the beginning I was really apprehensive about taking on. It never gets easy. It's always a weight that's on you. We'll find out as I exit this role in that, and that expectation or that possibility dissipates around me, I'll be able to tell you, maybe in a couple months, how l’m feeling then and how that weight has kind of lifted off of me, because some people say that you really don't realize how heavy that weight is until you've let it go. So it is heavy, it's hard, but it's also needed.
Reporters have stories that live with them, even after so many years, and they can be positive or negative. What about you? What stories live with you?
Ernster: Oh, boy. Good question. What I'm thinking back to, obviously, during the protests that occurred here, prior to the COVID — well, even COVID times — trying to work through those situations and try to share information and be a PIO, those are really hard times, and there was a lot of stress there and there's a lot of expectation of us. And I think that story, or just that time frame, will live on with me, that I'll be able to look back at that for years and remember.
What are the joys of the job that you'll miss?
Ernster: I’ll miss the people. I'll miss being an officer. It is very unique. There tends to be a great bond that's formed between everybody. I've been receiving many, many text messages and supportive messages about retirement, and it's really hard. I'm really perplexed about retirement and how it's you're sad, you're excited, you're nervous. There's a lot of different things that go into it, just because this job is so special, and when you've been doing it so much, it's so much of your life… It's built right into our DNA as a family. So to have it just kind of go away is going to be really odd, and I'm going to miss the people, but hopefully, I'll be able to stay in touch as much as possible.
Sgt. Toy Vixayvong, a 23-year veteran of the department, and Nikki Muehlhausen, who has 18 years of news media experience, joined current Public Information Officer Alyssa Arcand as Ernster retired Friday.